I'd pay someone to wash the dishes

This morning, I woke up and lay in my bed wondering why my cousin, who lives in a very posh, very new, highrise condo, doesn't have a dishwasher. Last night, we had a potluck dinner with my aunt, uncles and cousins, with everyone bringing a couple of dishes that they made or bought, and we squeezed around a table and enjoyed the Taiwanese meal. My cousins' kids who ate by themselves, finished all the food at their table and then came around to the "adults" table with their chopsticks and bowls to hunt for some more food. Still, we didn't come close to finishing it all, and after the meal, they cleared the table and wrapped up the leftovers (Chinese never throw away leftovers) and, there was a mountain of dishes to wash. That's when I was stunned to learn that they didn't have a dishwasher. So, while the rest of us ate fruit and chatted, my cousin was in the kitchen for an hour, washing up the dishes. When I asked my dad about it, he shrugged, and said his family grew up washing dishes, and it's not a chore, but an everyday task, like cooking or brushing your teeth.




Another Taiwanese custom is to bring your own towels. I remember as a kid, we used to do that, until my parents adopted the Canadian custom of expecting guest towels. So, my dad and I didn't bring our own towels, and when I asked for one at my cousin's place, they handed me a dishtowel. It wasn't a punishment - that's really the size of their bath towels, and it's not just my dad's family. We're now staying in a friend's friend's house, and in their bathroom, they also have mini towelettes. My guess is that with their high humidity, they use the small towels so that they dry faster. Anyway, I bought a set of towels as a gift for my cousin, and oddly, they're not cheap. I went into a department store in Taipei, and they start at $25 Cdn for a small (slightly larger than dishtowel) towel. Had I known, I would have passed on the Lindt chocolates, and gone to Zellers, and stocked up on towels to bring as gifts.

Ba and I went into a supermarket, and checked out the prices of food on the shelves, and discovered that they weren't that much cheaper than Costco or Superstore food prices. But when we eat in small diners, buy cooked food on the street or from the 7-Eleven or from the farmer's stand, we can pay around half of what we pay in Canada. My bowdze (veggie steamed bun) this morning was 30 cents. The total for our breakfast of dojung (soy milk), a rice roll, two steamed buns, a coffee and a yogurt drink, cost about $3.50. I still don't get it; some things are so much cheaper and some things are at par, and real estate is through the roof: $5,000/sq.m Cdn.